The almighty Ukrainian shirt

I have finally done it! After two years of cross-stitching perseverance I've finally done it! 😁

The whole story started with me travelling to Ukraine a couple of years ago on what could be described as a nostalgic vacation. I wanted to see my childhood city Lviv again and how it looked today (well...2 years ago). Yes. I was born in Lviv, Ukraine. Because my mom is from that beautiful city. And I lived there for 5 years before moving with my mom to the Arabic world to join my Jordanian father.

The front

But long story short, I travelled to Ukraine on vacation and my mom asked me to buy her a Ukrainian shirt (locally known as a vyshyvanka: an embroidered one). Oh! And get one for Basma (my little sister). I asked: How about Lara? (the middle sister). Answer: No, she doesn't want one.

Fast forward a few months when these two shirts have been delivered to the requesters, and I get the question from Lara: How about me? Me: 😐😕😲😡..............OK, I'll make you one myself.

And I started the cross-stitching journey: Went and googled and downloaded a bunch of designs, then thought and rethought until I decided on one, then decided how to use it in my work. Then googled some more and found a very basic pattern for the shirt/blouse, then started on a long journey of cross-stitching.

Sleeve

As in the case of my own Palestinian shirt, once the front piece was done, the enthusiasm was much reduced. So it took some time and self-pushing to get started on the sleeves, and by the time I started on the second one I was so bored I just wanted to get it over with!

But once that was done, the sewing was super fast. I started by basting the piece together to check the fit of this basic pattern of mine. That fitting session revealed the biggest neckline of all times, that I test gathered to fit, but that resulted in very tight armholes which I also modified to look and feel better.

Then I went to work. I started by properly gathering each piece on its own, the sleeves and back across the whole piece:

And on both sides of the middle embroidery on the front piece:

Then I sewed the raglan sleeves to the front, and after to the back. Then finished the neckline with a red satin bias tape.

The sleeve seam and side seam I did in one go.

Then the excitement made me forget to make more pictures of the work in progress 😄. But what happened next was to gather the sleeve hems a bit and use the same satin tape to finish those. On the sleeves however I used two layers of the tape to give it more width. And last I hemmed the shirt itself.

I tried also to make a little "rope belt" to match using cotton yarn, it didn't turn too bad but could've been a bit longer...

And here it is:

It might be a bit emptier than it should be but that's what I had patience for this time. And this also concludes my Sewing for others collection, which means: I DID IT!

The Burda project link will come later when I have pictures of the owner modelling it for me 😊